How To Bet On The NFL In Indiana

There is no other modern cultural phenomenon that unites America like football. Baseball might still call itself “the national pastime,” but by every possible measure, it was replaced decades ago by football. The NFL draws the most eyeballs — and in every state with legal sports betting, it draws the most wagering action.

On this page, we will provide all the information you need to understand NFL betting at legal online Indiana sportsbooks, including key terms to know, where and how to wager legally, and how the upcoming NFL season is shaping up. We’ll also drill down on the local team, the Indianapolis Colts, and its recent record both on the field and against the spread. And of course, we’ll point you to the best sportsbook bonus offers.

Best NFL betting sites in Indiana

See the table below and check out the best NFL betting sites in Indiana:

What’s ahead in the 2020 NFL season

The NFL is gearing up for a season unlike any other, and the truth is that nobody knows with certainty what to expect. The timing of the COVID-19 pandemic had less of an immediate impact on football than on other sports that were in season in the spring, but it nonetheless surrounds the upcoming NFL season with question marks:

• Will games begin in September as scheduled?
• Will teams be playing in empty stadiums?
• Will training camp start on time?
• Will players have to be sequestered for part or all of the season?

The answers largely depend on how coronavirus testing and treatment progress in the spring and summer and what the medical experts deem to be safe practices.

But assuming there is an NFL season — and given the money at stake, odds are the league finds a way — this is shaping up as a fascinating campaign.

Most impactful offseason moves

The league is going to look very different in 2020 than it did in 2019 — and not just because games might be played without fans. Between trades, free agency, and the April draft, quite a few impact players have found new homes:

• Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski to Tampa Bay: The Super Bowl winning teammates and future Hall of Famers separately going from the Patriots to the Bucs made for the highest-profile uniform changes of the offseason, and Tampa’s futures odds shrunk considerably.
• Other QBs on the move: Philip Rivers signed with the Hoosier State’s Colts, Teddy Bridgewater went to the Panthers, Jameis Winston replaced Bridgewater as the Saints’ backup, Nick Foles landed on the Bears, and Andy Dalton was signed by the Cowboys — before “America’s Team” locked up the presumed home-grown franchise QB to a long-term deal!
• Hopkins to Arizona: In the most head-scratching trade seen in the NFL in years, the Texans sent DeAndre Hopkins, a top-5 WR, to the Cardinals for RB David Johnson, a once-productive player who hasn’t been elite since 2016. Houston then gave up a second-round draft pick to replace Hopkins with concussion-prone Brandin Cooks.
• Draft headlines: Heisman winner Joe Burrow went first overall to the Bengals and replaces Andy Dalton as their franchise QB; the Redskins beefed up their scary defensive front with Ohio State’s Chase Young; Tua Tagovailoa hopes to become the first superstar QB in Miami since Dan Marino; and the Cowboys added arguably the best WR in a deep WR class when CeeDee Lamb surprisingly fell to No. 17.

2020 NFL season key dates

• Training camps open: Varies by team and is particularly fluid this year due to COVID-19 considerations, but camps are currently expected to open in mid-July when rookies report ahead of veteran players.
• Preseason Week 1 (Aug. 6): The NFL preseason officially kicks off with the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. This year’s participants are the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers — two franchises with former coaches and players among the Centennial Class of HOF inductees.
• NFL Week 1 (Sept. 10): The NFL season is scheduled to begin with the Thursday “NFL Kickoff Game,” featuring the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs taking on an opponent to be determined. The full schedule will be released no later than May 9.
• NFL Thanksgiving Games (Nov. 26): Three games will be played Thanksgiving Day, spread out among an early-afternoon game (traditionally hosted by the Detroit Lions), a late-afternoon game (traditionally hosted by the Dallas Cowboys), and a prime-time game on the NFL Network without a traditional host team.
• NFL Week 17 (Jan. 3, 2021): The NFL’s regular season will conclude Jan. 3 with all 32 teams in action on the same day, and the timing of games is adjusted according to playoff implications. 
• Wild Card Weekend (Jan. 9-10, 2021): This season for the first time, seven teams from each conference will qualify for the playoffs, up from six teams per conference last season. The top seed in each conference receives a bye, meaning fans will get six Wild Card games — three on Saturday, three on Sunday — with the division winners seeded No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 hosting the Wild Card qualifiers.
• Divisional Round (Jan. 16-17, 2021): Fans can watch and bet on two games on Saturday and two on Sunday, with the six winners from the previous weekend and the two No. 1 seeds in action. The winners from the Wild Card round will be re-seeded to determine the matchups.
• Conference Championships (Jan. 24, 2021): The four winners from the divisional round will square off to determine the Super Bowl representatives from the AFC and NFC.
• Super Bowl LV (Feb. 3, 2021): This season’s Super Bowl will be held at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., which last hosted the event in 2009, when Pittsburgh defeated Arizona in a thrilling Super Bowl XLIII. Raymond James Stadium also hosted Super Bowl XXXV in 2001, which saw the Baltimore Ravens top the New York Giants.

What’s the “vig” in NFL betting?

The term “vig” is short for “vigorish,” which is the amount the bookmaker charges for accepting a wager. For a typical bet, standard pricing is -110 on both sides, which means the customer is betting $110 to win $100. If two bettors take opposite sides of the same game for $110 each, the book will collect $220 and return $210 to the winning bettor. The house edge amounts to $5 for a $110 bet in that example.

It’s easy to see the impact on bettors of higher or lower vigs. A wager at -105 results in a theoretical $2.50 profit for the sportsbook on a $105 bet, a 2.38% house edge. A wager at -115 has a theoretical $7.50 profit for the book on a $115 bet, a 6.52% house edge.

That sort of pricing applies to any market with two possible outcomes, such as the Colts favored by 3.5 points, their season win total being set at 9.5 games, or Marlon Mack to rush for over or under 79.5 yards in a game. For many bets, though — particularly futures bets — there are more than two possible outcomes and the vig is harder to calculate. For example, a bettor can choose from four teams to win the AFC South, and you might see pricing like:

• Colts +135
• Titans +165
• Texans +300
• Jaguars +2000

It’s no small task to calculate the “juice” there and determine how much the book will profit if wagering is balanced. But rest assured, unless the bookmaker makes a mistake, or a special odds boost is being offered, the bettor is paying a vig.

Popular NFL betting markets and formats

• Futures: You don’t need to wait for the season to start in order to make these wagers. You can bet on any team to win its division, conference, or the Super Bowl; on players to win awards such as MVP; on a team to win over/under a certain number of regular season games; or on a player to go over/under a certain statistical milestone.
• Point spread: The most popular and pure form of NFL betting, where the book establishes how many points one team is favored by and the bettor can take either team to cover the spread. The line can move over the course of the week on account of one-sided betting action or significant injury news, sometimes opening up the opportunity for a bettor to “middle” the game by betting both sides at different spreads and having some space in between the lines where both bets would win.
• Moneyline: As with the spread, the bettor picks one team or the other, but in this case your team needs to win outright — with a moneyline bet, teams are not giving or receiving points as they would with the spread. To bet on a favored team requires the bettor to “lay” a price (say, -200, which is risking $200 to win $100), while a bet on an underdog returns more than the bettor risks.
• Total (Over/Under): It doesn’t matter which teams wins the game or by how much. With totals, it all comes down to the combined points scored by the two teams and whether the final number is over or under the book’s line. Totals (or spreads) can also be bet for a segment of a game, like a quarter or a half. Team totals can be bet specific to one team or another.
• Parlays: A parlay bet is a combination of multiple picks, or “legs,” that all need to win for the wager to pay. The more legs, or the bigger an underdog the various legs are, the higher the potential payout. Parlays are a way to approximate lottery-style financial wins with sports betting, but ultimately the house has the biggest edge with parlays, typically posting about double the “hold” percentage that operators do with single bets on any sport.
• Teasers: Similar to a parlay, but bettors adjust lines to make each leg more favorable — while reducing the size of their potential payout. The most common NFL teasers see lines adjusted by 6, 6.5, and 7 points. As a general rule, a three-team teaser pays significantly less than a two-team parlay.
• Live betting: Live betting is frequently hailed as the wave of the future, allowing bettors to make new wagers mid-game, as lines are updated in real time based on the score and situation. There is typically a higher vig baked into live betting than there is in pre-game betting, but there are also opportunities to exploit weak lines if an operator’s in-game algorithm is in any way limited.
• Player props: Wagers on an individual player’s production (yards in a game, TDs in a season, etc.) are cited by many sharp bettors as the best place to find inefficient NFL markets, either because a bettor’s statistical modeling is superior to the sportsbooks’ or because the lines don’t react quickly enough to injury news. Daily fantasy sports (DFS) experts particularly tend to spot player props they can take advantage of.

Indiana’s NFL team

Indianapolis Colts (AFC South)

The Indianapolis Colts are not exactly in a rebuilding phase. Rather, they’re a contender in a reinventing phase as they enter the second year without Andrew Luck. The franchise quarterback’s sudden retirement during the 2019 preseason turned a playoff team into a squad that narrowly missed out on the playoffs, sputtering down the stretch after a 6-4 start to finish 7-9.

Jacoby Brissett was serviceable as the primary signal caller last season, but he is not viewed as the long-term solution, hence management’s decision to sign 38-year-old Philip Rivers to a one-year deal, hoping he can keep the Colts a contender. General Manager Chris Ballard drafted Washington’s Jacob Eason in the fourth round, though opinions are mixed as to whether he has the makings of an impact NFL QB.

Other than signing Rivers, the most significant move Ballard made during the offseason was trading the team’s first-round pick (No. 13 overall) for 49ers DT DeForest Buckner. In the draft, the team upgraded at wide receiver with USC’s Michael Pittman Jr. and added Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor to a running back crops that includes Marlon Mack and gets to rush behind one of the NFL’s top offensive lines.

Coaching and ‘Colts country’

With one of the best head coaches in the league, Frank Reich, calling the shots, the Colts are expected to contend for the AFC South title, in what’s seen as a three-way race between Indy, Tennessee, and a Houston team that probably moved backward this offseason. The Colts’ chances of playing into January depend largely on whether Rivers, who showed signs of decline last season while throwing nearly as many interceptions (20) as touchdowns (23), will thrive in his new surroundings.

Over the last five seasons, the oddsmakers have done a remarkable job booking Colts games, as they’ve gone 38-38-4 against the spread during the regular season and have never finished more than one game above or below .500:

YEAR	SU RECORD	ATS RECORD	ATS HOME	ATS AWAY	OFF PPG	DEF PPG
2019	7-9	7-7-2	4-4	3-3-2	22.6	23.3
2018	10-6	8-7-1	3-4-1	5-3	27.1	21.5
2017	4-12	8-8	5-3	3-5	16.4	25.3
2016	8-8	7-8-1	3-5	4-3-1	25.7	24.5
2015	8-8	8-8	4-4	4-4	20.8	25.5

Nearly the entire state of Indiana is “Colts country,” with the exception of some southeastern regions that root for the Cincinnati Bengals and areas in the northwest corner of the state that are home to Chicago Bears fans. There are also significant segments of eastern Illinois and northern Kentucky that back the Colts.

The Colts’ schedule looks manageable to moderate on the surface for 2020. In addition to two games apiece against division rivals Tennessee, Houston, and Jacksonville, notable outside-the-division home games include tests against the Ravens, Packers, and Vikings, while the team has it easier on the road, with only one game against a 2019 playoff squad (the Steelers).

NFL weather and home-field considerations

For any NFL game not played inside a dome, it’s critical that bettors and fantasy sports players explore the weather forecast for the home city on game day. There are some outstanding resources out there for vital weather information, including RotoGrinders’ dedicated NFL weather page, the website NFLWeather.com, and meteorologist Kevin Roth’s Twitter feed.

The most impactful weather condition in football is high wind, which frequently decreases passing stats, increases rushing stats, and lowers scores. Rain and snow can have similar effects if the precipitation is substantial enough — but neither of those are quite as reliably consequential as heavy winds.

Extreme cold also tends to favor defenses and keep scores down, and tends to impact late-season games in northern locations such as Green Bay, Chicago, Buffalo, Denver, New England, and Cleveland. On the opposite extreme, heat can be a factor in warmer-weather stadiums, such as in the Florida cities, early in the season. A scorchingly hot day can definitely test a team’s collective conditioning — and its roster depth.

Usually, weather reports won’t impact a bookmaker’s total or move the game line more than a point or two, and if anything, bettors tend to overreact to a bad forecast. The key elements to watch out for are high winds or torrential downpours, which can make an “under” worth betting if you have the weather scouted before the books do.

Weather can work out to the benefit of the home team if its players are more used to the extreme conditions, but it’s just one element that makes up home-field advantage. For decades, bookmakers have reflexively given three extra points to the visiting team. In other words, if the Colts are favored by 3 at home, it means the book views them as equal to their opponent on a neutral field.

Home field advantage

One question bettors will likely have to consider in 2020 is whether every field is akin to a neutral field. Nobody knows whether games will played in front of empty, or mostly empty, stadiums, and if so — if, say, the Seattle Seahawks don’t have their “12th man” drowning out the visiting offense’s efforts to call plays at the line — the traditional home-field advantage might be rendered moot.

If there are home fans in attendance and home-field advantage does exist in 2020, which teams are most likely to benefit from it? Here are the five best records (straight up) at home over the last five seasons combined:

1. New England Patriots: 33-7
2. Kansas City Chiefs: 30-10
3. Minnesota Vikings: 29-11
4. Philadelphia Eagles: 28-12
5. Green Bay Packers: 27-12-1

And here are the five best records at home against the spread over the last five seasons:

1. Minnesota Vikings: 27-12-1
2. New England Patriots: 24-13-3
3. Chicago Bears: 22-17-1
4. Green Bay Packers: 21-18-1
5. New Orleans Saints: 21-18-1

Watching NFL games on TV

The NFL is the ultimate made-for-TV sports league — just ask fans who attend the games and have to sit through seemingly endless “TV timeouts.” With actual fan attendance in jeopardy for the 2020 season, the TV-friendly nature of the NFL is more important than ever.

All of the major national networks have contracts with the NFL. CBS and FOX share Sunday rights (FOX gets it if the road team is the NFC, CBS if the road team is in the AFC), NBC has the Sunday prime-time game (often the marquee game of the week), and ABC/ESPN has Monday Night Football. Also, the NFL Network carries the Thursday night game. In addition, Amazon has boasted some live streaming rights since 2017.

For those diehards who want access to every game, DirecTV Sunday Ticket costs extra but comes in handy for fans who live outside the region whether their favorite team plays. And for those who want to make sure to see every touchdown and every critical moment, NFL Network’s “Red Zone” channel juggles all the Sunday day games and has proven an indispensable service for DFS lineup sweaters.

The action on the field is obviously the most important element when watching football, but for some, the commentary team can make or break the viewing experience. Here are the top national duos:

• CBS: Jim Nantz and Tony Romo; ESPN reportedly tried to lure Romo away, but he signed a new contract in March with CBS worth a reported $18 million per year
• FOX: Joe Buck and Troy Aikman
• NBC: Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth
• ESPN: Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland; MNF has been rumored to be pursuing Peyton Manning

Key numbers in NFL betting

Key spread numbers

The NFL is constantly evolving, so the “key numbers,” based upon the most common margins of victory, aren’t exactly the same now as they were in years past. But traditionally, “3” and “7” are always important numbers. The sportsbooks do well by daring bettors to predict whether a team will by more or less than a field goal or more or less than a touchdown. The difference between a 2.5-point spread and a 3.5-point spread is massive compared to, say, the difference between a 4-point spread and a 5-point spread.

One vital concept to understand is “the hook.” If you bet on a team that is favored by 2.5 points, you’re getting the hook — that half-point separating you from a key number — working in your favor. If you bet on a 2.5-point underdog, you’re giving up the hook. Spreads of 3.5, 6.5, 7.5, 9.5, and 10.5 are also considered cases of the hook coming into play. Over the long term, the hook factors into the result more than a relatively new sports bettor might expect.

Key total numbers

When betting totals, “key numbers” are harder to pinpoint than they are with spreads, because there’s significantly more variance to consider when adding together the scores of two teams. Still, numbers that combine 7-point and 3-point increments are a bit more likely to end up as pivot points than random numbers in between. For example, 41, the total of five touchdowns (with successful PATs) and two field goals, is a popular number, whereas 43 is incrementally less likely to be the final total.

The hook can again be crucial, although because the key numbers are less consistent with totals as compared to spreads, it’s not always easy to identify which is the right side of the hook. For example, would you rather be over 47.5, because 48 is a somewhat common total, or under 47.5, because, well, 47 is also a common total?

In 2019, the average total final score was 45.6 points. So if a game between good offenses is in that range, “over” is often a smart bet, and if a game between good defenses is in that range, you might want to look to the “under.”

Getting the best number

Winning at NFL betting isn’t just about knowing which side to take. It’s also about taking the right side at the right time.

Spreads and totals move during the week, either because of injury reports or because one-sided betting prompts a sportsbook to adjust. So if the Colts open as a 3-point favorite and you have reason to believe that the money will come in on the Colts throughout the week and push the line up to 4, you should bet them immediately if you’re going to bet them at all. Conversely, if you want to bet against the Colts, it’s in your interest to wait and take advantage of a line move.

Staying on top of injury news is essential to getting the best number. If you follow reports from local beat writers, quotes from coaches, etc., and can get a good sense of whether an important starter is likely to miss a game or to play at less than 100 percent, that will help you to anticipate line changes and make your bets at the optimal time.

How the longer extra point has changed things

In 2015, the NFL moved the PAT kick back, turning a gimme 20-yarder (in 2010, 99.1% of those chip shots were made) into a less reliable 33-yarder (kickers have missed as many as 1 out of every 15 such attempts in recent seasons). This has dramatically affected scoring, as it’s not so uncommon to get 6 points out of a touchdown now instead of 7, plus the 8-point touchdown is now more common because teams are incentivized to try the 2-point conversion more frequently. Two-pointers have had a success rate of 50.05% since 2015, which means the expected value of going for 2 every time is actually greater than the expected value of kicking for a single point.

The combination of more missed extra points and more attempted 2-pointers has led to less reliable key numbers. For example, an 8-point spread might be considered a key number nowadays, because (a) a team is more likely to miss an extra point and be one point below the traditional key number, and (b) a team trailing by 11 or 16 late in the game will often play to trail by 8, knowing they can tie the game with a touchdown and a 2-point conversion.

Las Vegas Super Bowl betting history

Wagers, wins, and hold percentage last 10 years:

YEAR	WAGERS	SPORTSBOOK WIN	HOLD	GAME RESULT
2020	$154,679,241	$18,774,148	12.1%	KC 31, SF 20
2019	$145,939,025	$10,780,319	7.4%	NE 13, LAR 3
2018	$158,586,934	$1,170,432	0.7%	PHI 41, NE 33
2017	$138,480,136	$10,937,826	7.9%	NE 34, ATL 28 (OT)
2016	$132,545,587	$13,314,539	10.1%	DEN 24, CAR 10
2015	$115,986,086	$3,261,066	2.8%	NE 28, SEA 24
2014	$119,400,822	$19,673,960	16.5%	SEA 43, DEN 8
2013	$98,936,798	$7,206,460	7.3%	BAL 34, SF 31
2012	$93,899,840	$5,064,470	5.4%	NYG 21, NE 17
2011	$87,491,098	$724,176	0.8%	GB 31, PIT 25

*Source: Nevada Gaming Control Board

Advantage of betting on NFL games at legal sportsbooks

Regardless of when Indiana’s 15 brick-and-mortar sportsbooks return, there are a half-dozen regulated online/mobile sportsbooks open for betting in the state, with more to come.

Here are the Indiana digital sportsbooks, in order of when they launched:

SPORTSBOOK	LAUNCH DATE
BetRivers	Oct. 3, 2019
DraftKings	Oct. 3, 2019
FanDuel	Oct. 26, 2019
BetAmerica	Dec. 30, 2019
BetMGM	Feb. 25, 2020
PointsBet	March 6, 2020

Why is it in an Indiana sports bettor’s best interest to wager at a legal book rather than with an unchecked offshore operator or a bookie?

• Line shopping: If you bet with a bookie, you get one set of prices. You could theoretically work with several bookies, but that’s like taking a drive on a dangerous road and adding falling rocks and a rickety bridge. With access to multiple legal sportsbook accounts, you can safely compare lines and odds and pick the best possible point spread and financial return for any market you’re interested in betting.
• Safety and security of funds: Regulated sites require customers to undergo a verification process that protects both their identity and their funds — funds that are held in accounts segregated from operating accounts. Whereas offshore sites often impose hefty withdrawal fees and take weeks to process payouts, the Indiana Gaming Commission oversees all of the state’s casinos and online operators to ensure business is conducted on the up and up and to give citizens a central authority to turn to with disputes. Offshore sites can not be held accountable in any such fashion.
• Better banking: Offshore sites cannot legally accept funds from U.S. banks, nor will they work with PayPal or Skrill as a depositing method. In contrast, all the IN online sportsbooks accept these safe and secure options. Players on legal sites can also make direct cash deposits at the casino cage (when casinos are open, that is) or utilize a variety of other reliable methods offered by the sites of their choosing. And most importantly, with legal books, bettors aren’t facing the dreaded “Will I get paid?” question. When withdrawing from regulated sites, the money frequently arrives instantly, and at worst takes a day or two to process.
• Bonuses, boosts, and promotions: With all of the mobile sportsbooks — from FanDuel and DraftKings to BetRivers and BetMGM — fighting for Indiana customers in these early days of legal sports betting, the operators are bending over backward to sweeten the pot with bonuses and sign-up offers. There are also frequent “bet boosts” (enhanced odds, to the point where sometimes the bettor actually has a positive expected value relative to the house) and special promotions. As one extreme example, during the last NFL season, FanDuel Sportsbook promised to move the line on a Colts-Saints game by one point for every 250 bets placed, resulting in Indianapolis bettors ultimately getting the local team at a spread of +51 — essentially, a can’t-lose wager.

Bankroll management

Many sports bettors get so caught up in wins and losses, in trying to analyze the Xs and Os and pick the right sides, that they lose sight of the most fundamental building block of any successful gambling career or hobby: bankroll management.

Different betting experts have different rules they recommend following, but one thing nearly everyone with longevity in the gambling game — whether they’re sports bettors, DFS players, poker players, advantage casino players, etc. — has in common is some sort of measured approach to how much they’re willing to risk at any one time. If your goal is to have a positive experience, you have to be prepared for ups and downs and manage your bankroll in such a way that it can endure the setbacks.

The first rule of responsible sports betting is not to wager money that you can’t afford to lose. You should keep your betting bankroll separate from the funds you use to pay your monthly bills.

Settling limits and establishing ‘units’

From there, the key to making a bankroll last is to set limits on how much you’ll risk on a single wager. Experts’ recommendations vary: Some won’t risk more than 1% of their bankroll on a game, while others might believe up to 5% is safe. Whatever the case, as your bankroll grows, your bet size can grow, and as your bankroll shrinks, your bets should contract with it. Your standard “unit” size should reflect a responsible amount relative to your betting bankroll.

Naturally, it’s advisable to risk more units or fewer units depending on the type of bet. If you have $5,000 in your sports betting account and a unit for you is $100, on a standard -110 game line, you’ll bet $100 to win a little over $90. But if you like a -400 favorite on the moneyline, it’s not breaking bankroll management rules to risk $400 to win $100. And if you’re planning to bet a 50/1 futures long shot, it’s responsible to bet some amount below one unit rather than have a swing equal to your entire bankroll riding on the outcome.

Betting highlights of the NFL season

When one betting season ends, another begins, so from the moment the final whistle blows to conclude the Super Bowl in February, it’s game on for futures bets for the coming NFL season. Sportsbooks waste little time posting championship odds for every team. And from there, the NFL betting opportunities only gather steam:

• Start of the free agent season (March): The free agency period is usually the first opportunity for futures lines to move — with quarterbacks changing teams causing particular waves and ripples. Keep in mind that with every major signing, one team improves and one gets worse.
• NFL schedule release (April): This is practically a national sports betting holiday. Once the schedule is announced and sportsbooks know which games are happening when, betting lines for Week 1 (and beyond) quickly follow.
• NFL Hall of Fame Game (August): Preseason betting is tricky, given that teams are rarely playing to win, but there are opportunities to beat the books if you’re willing to put in the time and do the research. Then again, if you just want to place a casual bet and get back into the mode of sweating games, the first preseason game is a perfect chance to entertain yourself in that manner.
• NFL Kickoff Game (September): The first game of the regular season isn’t just about having games to bet and sweat. It’s also the kickoff of season-long picks contests, such as the famous Las Vegas SuperContest.
• Thanksgiving Day (November): An American holiday that doubles as a sports holiday and a sports betting holiday, with three games to enjoy while spending time with the family (or as an alternative to spending time with the family).
• Weeks 15 and 16 (December): The third-to-last and second-to-last weeks of the regular season represent the playoffs for season-long fantasy players. They’re also major Sundays in DFS, since Week 17 will feature numerous backup players and the playoffs offer short slates.
• Playoffs (January): The first weekend of the postseason will be bigger than ever this year, with six games to bet on during Wild Card Weekend instead of the usual four. That will be followed by a standard Divisional Round of four games and then the two Conference Championship games.
• Super Bowl (February): It’s the single biggest sports betting day of the year, and you’ll never see another game with more options for props. The fact that you can legally bet on the opening coin flip in numerous states, including Indiana, tells you everything you need to know about what a wild, fun sports betting event the Super Bowl is.

And when the game is over, well, the cycle begins again!